


Sightline

by triarii



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hannibal Lecter is a teenager here basically things are going to be fucked up, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:12:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triarii/pseuds/triarii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is a sophomore with new foster parents. Hannibal Lecter is a senior with a car and blood under his fingernails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh. I have visions of poor baby will graham with dead parents in the foster system coming to live with jack and Bella and meeting the fucked up senior boy next door, with a Japanese aunt and a penchant for hunting using things not necessarily considered weapons --Marlee
> 
> This is really dark and weird and kinda messed up I'm sorry in advance

Will Graham spends a lot of time on the roof.

Jack and Bella Crawford are, as foster parents go, close to exceptional. The house is not overcrowded with children, there is a hot meal on the table every night, and they try very hard to be welcoming. The problem is, Will is not very good at being welcomed.

The tar paper of the roof is warm under his hands, despite the sun having gone down. The neighborhood is quiet, yellow light softly glowing from most windows and casting long beams on the patchy grass of their yards. He hears a baby start crying in the duplex across the street, the light in its room flicking on briefly. The crying stops, and the light goes out again.

Next door, he watches Hannibal Lecter as he methodically skins a squirrel in the backyard.

\--- 

“Let me drive you home,” Hannibal Lecter says to him.

Will stops walking and stares at him. He imagines that Hannibal intends the gesture to be more grandiose, but refined gestures are difficult when one is confined to a station wagon. Hannibal Lecter seems as if he’d be more at home behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce. Will wonders, briefly, what he has done to attract the attention of Hannibal Lecter enough to be offered a ride: Hannibal Lecter is a senior, and fairly popular. Though infallibly polite, he does not seem to be the type to offer underclassmen a lift home out of simple altruism. But heat is coming off of the pavement in waves despite the approach of fall, and the air conditioning falling from Hannibal’s open window proves to be far too persuasive.

It is not a long car ride, but Will manages to be silent for most of it. The radio is turned to something neutral; a slightly static-filled baroque piece crackles from the speakers, harpsichord notes filling the space that conversation would have taken. “Why,” says Will Graham, finally, “did you offer me a ride?”

“We are neighbors,” replies Hannibal matter-of-factly. “I was offering a polite gesture.”

Will nods. They drive past Freddie Lounds, her hair a bright patch of red against the grey duplexes behind her; Will catches her eye as they pass, and when he looks back her face is alight with the glow of new gossip.

“Freddie lives two doors down from me,” says Will. “Do polite gestures not extend past next-door neighbors?”

Hannibal smirks. “Freddie Lounds would not know politeness if it introduced itself to her personally.” There is no edge to his voice; he almost says it affectionately. He seems smug about this particular piece of character analysis.

Will chuckles, shaking his head. He is trying to piece Hannibal Lecter together in his head, but he is more of a challenge than the Crawfords (kindhearted but distant, using foster children to fill the void of infertility, some secret--a couples’ spat?--turning their marriage frigid) or Margot Verger, one of his only friends at school (childhood trauma, bad family life, icy and manipulative out of survival rather than instinct). Hannibal Lecter is a popular senior, works in the student government, manages the cross-country team, is on the honor roll. Hannibal Lecter did not see Will Graham watch him skin that squirrel in the backyard.

Hannibal Lecter has just stopped the car.

“I believe this is your stop,” he says. “You have been, by far, the quietest person I have driven home, but I enjoyed your company nonetheless.”

Will snaps out of his reverie. “I hope I didn’t offend you. I’m just a quiet person.” He gathers his backpack up, opens the door, nearly walks away before remembering his manners. “Thank you for the ride, by the way.”

“Not at all. Perhaps next time I might be graced with the honor of your conversation,” Hannibal smirks. He drives away, pulling into his garage before Will can come up with something witty to say about there being a next time.

The squirrel, he thinks, was still alive when Hannibal skinned it.

 ---

Will realizes that he has started to adjust. The weather is cooler now, and he likes to imagine that it cools his head. Talking with the Crawfords has become easier: they know where to stop pushing, and he is learning when not to withdraw. He occasionally contributes to dinner table conversation, now; news of school functions, comments about the progress being made by his new foster siblings. He is the eldest of the Crawford fosters by far--Winston and Buster are four and two, respectively. Bella appreciates his patience with them, is getting less hesitant to leave him alone with them.

School is getting easier as well. He’s stopped getting lost in the hallways, started making friends. Margot Verger is coldly distant as ever, but he’s realized that her icy disposition towards him is downright cozy for her. He eats lunch with a quiet boy named Peter; a senior named Alana Bloom goes out of her way to be friendly to him.

Hannibal Lecter sometimes watches him in the halls.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Two weeks after his first ride home with Hannibal Lecter, he hears it again.

“Let me drive you home.”

The dark green paint of Hannibal’s station wagon is slightly chipped on the driver’s side door. Will finds himself analyzing it, creating scenarios in his head. No visible rust, so it isn’t age-related; it’s too close to the window to be damage from a door ding. Hannibal is watching him, looking slightly amused. Finally, Will nods, and gets in.

This time, Hannibal speaks. “I painted the car myself when I bought it,” he explains. “It was a horrible shade of orange, before.”

“You used the wrong kind of paint,” Will says. “That’s why it’s chipping.”

Hannibal chuckles. “I have realized that.”

“You don’t seem like the type of person to make those sorts of mistakes.”

Hannibal arches a brow at him, smirking. “Are you calling me a perfectionist?”

“I’m saying you seem like a very deliberate person,” Will replies.

“You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that.” Hannibal brakes, shifts gears, accelerates. “But we all make mistakes, don’t we?”

“I suppose we do.”

After a brief silence, Hannibal says, “This is the part where you offer a charming anecdote of a mistake you once made, you know.” He smiles, more to himself than at Will. Will finds himself smiling as well. Sometimes he forgets that Hannibal is not an adult and is still, rather, a cocky teenager.

“Well _shucks_ ,” he intonates. “One time I got in a car with a senior and he made _fun_ of me!” Hannibal laughs, his hands relaxing at the wheel. Will makes a mental note: Hannibal was looking for his approval. The silence between them is less charged, now, more amicable.

“You know the type of paint to put on cars, then?” Hannibal asks.

Will nods. “I stayed with a family a while back; the dad was a mechanic. For boats, mostly, but I learned some things about cars, too.”

“I should ask you before I take on another project, then.”

Will smiles, looking at a daub of paint that managed to stain the car’s interior. “You probably should.”

Hannibal smiles back before he stops the car. “And now, we’ve reached your stop.”

He pauses before getting out. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Thank you for the conversation,” Hannibal counters.

Will watches Hannibal pull into the carport, then goes inside himself, wondering if he should offer to help Jack with dinner.

\---

“So tell me about you and Hannibal Lecter,” says Margot Verger to him during study hall. It takes Will a second to process her question; he had actually been studying, this time, rather than sneaking glances at Alana Bloom from the corner of his eye.

Will looks up from his textbook. “What’s there to tell?”

“Freddie saw him give you a ride the other day.” She leans back in her chair, examining her nails. “He doesn’t offer rides to just anyone, you know.”

“Hannibal doesn’t offer rides to _Freddie_ , you mean,” Alana interrupts. Will didn’t realize she had been listening. She gets up from the next table over, leaving her homework to sit next to Will.

Margot rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, I didn’t realize you two were friends,” she says, returning to her book.

Will shrugs. “He lives next door to me. I don’t know if I’d say we’re friends.”

“You don’t like him?” Alana asks. Will laughs, shakes his head.

“I don’t know him all that well. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I don’t know that we’re friends yet.”

“Gay,” says Margot, not even looking up. Will scoffs.

“Look who’s talking, Margot,” he snipes. Margot smirks in approval; it’s taken Will a long time to start returning her barbs. Alana laughs, slightly uncomfortably.

“You can laugh, Alana, it’s not a hate crime.” Margot’s eyes are wide with mock concern as she reaches across the table to pat Alana’s wrist.

Alana rolls her eyes, but her laugh is genuine this time. “Thanks, Margot. I appreciate it.” She doesn’t pull away from being touched, and Will notes the approval on Margot’s face. If this was a test, Alana has passed it.

“Still,” says Margot, as if no exchange had happened, “Hannibal Lecter doesn’t offer rides to just anyone.”

\---

There is an informal after-dinner routine at the Crawford house. After Bella takes Winston and Buster upstairs to get cleaned up, Jack and Will split the newspaper before clearing the table. Usually, they sit in silence, only speaking to trade pages. Will finds that he likes it, and even likes Jack’s presence, so he doesn’t make conversation, not wanting to ruin it.

“Will,” Jack says to him one night, “are you making friends at school?”

Will looks up from the sports section, slightly bemused. He’s quiet for a moment, then answers: “I’m not what you’d call _popular_ \--” at Jack’s alarmed face, he backtracks. “I have a few friends. I’m not being bullied, or anything. You don’t have to worry. Hannibal Lecter--from next door?--he drives me home, sometimes.”

Jack nods in approval. “Hannibal’s a good kid. Bella just--we _both_ just hope you know your friends are always welcome here.”

“Oh.” Will pauses, not sure what to say. “I never thought they weren’t, I just… I don’t know,” he trails off.

“Invite them over for dinner sometime,” Jack shrugs. “Or go out. Bella and I can handle watching Winston and Buster, you know. Have some fun.”

Will can see what Jack is doing. He wants to be a cool dad, someone Will feels comfortable with. He’s overcompensating a little, far too concerned with Will associating him with his previous foster father.

They’re quiet for a while. Will finishes the page he’s reading, then stands and starts clearing the dinner plates.

“Thanks, Jack.” As he turns to leave the table, he says quietly, “I know you’re not like Garrett Hobbs. You don’t have to try so hard to prove it.”

He pretends to ignore the concern in Jack’s face as he goes up to his room for the night, and resolves to invite someone over for dinner. Jack is trying, so he ought to try, too.

\---

Hannibal sits down across from him during lunch on Friday. He pauses before sitting, indicating the chair. “Do you mind?”

Will shakes his head. “Not at all.” Hannibal smiles, sitting down and unwrapping his lunch piece by piece from meticulously folded squares of waxed paper.

Every time Will speaks to Hannibal, he finds himself picking up strangely formal affectations; he has always been an accidental mimic, adopting the same cadence and style of speaking as the person he is speaking to, but Hannibal brings it out in him the most. As they exchange small talk, he decides that it must be because he still doesn’t _get_ Hannibal. Most peoples’ personalities and motivations are an open book to him. Hannibal Lecter is an enigma.

Midway through the conversation, Hannibal asks him, “Do you usually sit alone, Will?”

“Not usually.” He picks at the food on his tray, slightly amused. “I have friends, Hannibal. You don’t need to sit with me out of pity, or obligation, or--”

“I’m not,” Hannibal shrugs. “I don’t think of myself as the sort of person who would make friends out of pity.”

“Obligation, then?” he repeats. “Neighborly politeness?” Will is half-teasing, now, and Hannibal knows it. Hannibal cracks a grin, pushing his hair from his eyes, but when he answers his voice is level and serious.

“Perhaps I just find you interesting.”

Hannibal drives him home again after school that day. 


	3. Chapter 3

Will has not forgotten the incident with the squirrel, but somehow, every time he is with Hannibal, he can’t find the words to bring it up. It almost baffles him: he has always been able to bluntly speak about things that make others uncomfortable, but this renders him tongue-tied.

Right now, he watches Hannibal speak to Alana Bloom, half-hidden behind his locker. He wonders how someone who seems so rational could have so coolly and so calmly dismembered a living thing. Alana’s arms are full of books, and Will watches Hannibal smoothly open a door for her, unconsciously polite.

He’s starting to wonder if he dreamed it.

\---

“You’ve got a remarkable read on me, Will Graham,” Alana Bloom says to him. Ever since she first sat with him and Margot during study hall, Will has seen more and more of her. Margot is conspicuously absent this period--something he’s sure she’ll say he owes her for later--leaving Will alone with Alana at their usual table. She had just finished venting to him about one of her teachers, to which he’d offered what he thought was solid advice.

He feels his face heat up. “I just empathize well,” he shrugs.

“It’s not just me, then?” she teases. He knows he could say something smooth here, something flirtatious, but the words won’t come to mind.

“I’ve always been able to read people,” he says instead. Internally, he winces.

Alana laughs softly, but not unkindly. She seems interested when she asks, “Really? You can just figure everyone out when you meet them?”

“Almost everyone,” he nods. “There aren’t many exceptions.”

“Any notable ones I’d know?” she asks. He briefly wonders if she’d want to be on that list, if he should claim that she is, but Alana Bloom doesn’t seem the type to relish in being an enigma.

“I still can’t figure out Hannibal Lecter,” he says instead, honestly.

She considers him, chewing her lip for a moment. “I think I’ve got a read on _you_ ,” she says. “You’re so used to being able to figure people out that you don’t work for it. Maybe you actually need to get to know him the old-fashioned way.” She laughs softly. “Talk to him. Try it out, I promise it’s not so bad.”

He blushes again, laughing as he ducks his head. “You might be onto something there.”

The conversation moves on before he realizes he could have asked to practice on her. A Casanova, he is not.

\---

Will doesn’t know how to approach Hannibal. Hannibal usually sits with Bedelia DuMaurier and Alana at lunch, and Will is too self-conscious to simply sit down with them. Asking him for a ride home is out of the question: being driven home by Hannibal Lecter is something he distinctly recognizes as a privilege he is being granted, not something he can simply expect. So he waits.

It takes nearly a week before he hears the station wagon pull up next to him as he walks home. This time, Hannibal doesn’t even ask; he simply jerks his head towards the passenger side, indicating for Will to get in.

“I could have had plans,” Will jokes when the car starts moving.

“I’m sure I would have looked very foolish if you had,” says Hannibal.

Will laughs. “That’s quite a risk to take,” he replies. He almost adds that he’d never be brave enough to do the same, but he realizes that Hannibal is cognizant of this, cognizant of their power imbalance. A shard of Hannibal Lecter comes into view: he likes to feel powerful.

“You got in, didn’t you?” Hannibal counters. “The risk paid off.”

“Who says it was voluntary? I might just consider this a very amicable kidnapping.”

“I assure you, you’ll be an exceptionally treated hostage,” Hannibal laughs.

“Good to know you won’t skin me alive,” Will almost says. The words nearly escape his mouth before he chokes on them, on their implications, on the way he’s not sure if he wants Hannibal to know what he’s seen.

Instead, he blurts out, “You should come over for dinner sometime.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who remembers the s1 bloopers i sure do  
> also holy crap y'all wtf i didn't expect such nice feedback??? wow you're all amazing like dang  
> i made more words for you to read

“Let me get this straight,” Margot says. They should be in study hall, but Margot has dragged Will out behind the bike racks so she can burn her brother’s cigarettes. She doesn’t smoke, but likes for Mason to think she does, claiming it gives her an excuse to inconvenience him. “You are inviting Hannibal Lecter to dinner with the illustrious fosters, and not me, your best friend in the world.”

“The idea is to reassure them that I have _normal_ friends, Margot,” Will counters. She laughs, lighting the end of another cigarette, applying the flame evenly across its length. “I’m trying to look well-adjusted.”

“Well, you’re on your own there, Will Graham,” she scoffs. “But why Hannibal? Alana is just as normal.”

“Jack likes Hannibal. It’s a safe bet.” He watches her progress, the meticulous way she burns Mason’s cigarettes without ever once taking a drag. “If you want to just inconvenience Mason, why not just throw them away?”

“Mason thinks that everyone who smokes is subconsciously trying to die. Except him, of course; he’s a special exception, he just does it to look cool. But I like to let him think that about me; it makes him less determined to outlive me, because he thinks I’ve already thrown in the towel.” She shrugs, watching her lighter reduce the cigarette to ash. “Anyways,” she jabs, “I’ll bet you’re only asking Hannibal because it would be too much like a date to ask Alana.” Will glares at her.

“I’m not the blushing virgin you think I am, Margot,” Will huffs. “I don’t get flustered _that_ easily.”

“Yet you’d rather ask Hannibal Lecter for a dinner date than her,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Do I smell like smoke yet?”

“You smell like your lungs are as black as your heart,” he replies.

She smirks. “Perfect.”

\---

Hannibal is coming to dinner on Friday. Freddie Lounds sits down with them on Wednesday afternoon. Will watches her, watches Hannibal’s face. A brief flicker of tension in the eyebrows, a slight tightening at the corners of his mouth: Hannibal Lecter found this very rude.

“It’s certainly unusual to see you without Bedelia, Hannibal,” she says, sans hello. No introduction, a leading comment on a personal relationship, ignoring Will’s presence; Will is mentally tracking the points Freddie is losing in Hannibal’s book.

“Hello to you too, Freddie,” Hannibal says, as if she had simply greeted him. He glances at her tray on the table. “How is your lunch?” Will finds himself chuckling into his milk at the over-the-top formality.

Unfazed, Freddie forges onwards. “I guess she’s gotten tired of you then, huh?” She nonchalantly picks at the wilted salad on her plate, gesturing with a plastic fork as she speaks. She leans forward, indicating Will with a toss of her hair. “And who’s _this_ then; fresh meat?”

“This is Will Graham,” Hannibal replies. In the face of Hannibal’s adult-like politeness, Will isn’t sure if he should offer a handshake or just nod. “He moved in next door to me. I like to think of us as friends.”

“ _Do_ you now?” she gushes. Freddie turns to Will, her eyes bright and piercing. “Well then, Will Graham, do you like to think of Hannibal as _your_ friend?”

Will is frozen briefly, the anxiety of being put on the spot capturing his tongue. Finally, he blurts out, “I’m a sophomore, not a freshman.” When she blinks, confused, he continues: “You asked if I was fresh meat. That’s slang for freshman. I’m not that young; I’m sixteen.” He notices that Hannibal is laughing, silently, hiding his mouth behind a napkin. His mouth twitches into a grin. “And I like to think of us as friends, too.”

Freddie regards him for a second, one eyebrow raised. She turns to Hannibal as if Will never spoke, leaning on her elbows across the table. “He certainly is, ah, _unique_. You sure know how to pick them, Hannibal.” She tosses her hair as she stands up, leaving her tray behind as she turns to leave. “I don’t know that I’ll ever understand your... tastes.”

“Shut up, bitch,” Hannibal replies, so flippantly that Will almost doesn’t register it. Freddie, also, does a double-take, blinking at Hannibal in shock before turning on her heel and leaving without a word.

Will simply stares at him, then bursts out laughing.

Hannibal forces back a grin as he does.

\---

Will wakes up in a cold sweat in the wee hours of the night, his shirt and sheets nearly soaked through. Anxiety clings at him as he strips, alleviated slightly as he puts on clean clothes. The room feels hot and damp and choked until he opens the window, clambering onto the roof by reflex alone. With the cold tar paper against his skin, he forces himself to take deep breaths. He’s safe, he reminds himself. He’s safe.

A few breaths later, he realizes that he’s cold. Fall has set in; it’s no longer good roof-sitting weather. He shivers involuntarily as a breeze bites his damp skin, but his hands are still shaking: he can’t go inside yet. He heaves a shaky sigh, dropping his head into his hands. This is, he rationalizes, a perfectly normal reaction to trauma. Plenty of people get nightmares. But Will Graham has always prided himself on being incredibly logical: his trauma is behind him. Garrett Jacob Hobbs is no longer his foster father; he is safe with the Crawfords. He should not still be having nightmares. He repeats this to himself four times.

Next door, Hannibal’s house is dark and still. He glances into the backyard out of sheer force of habit; it’s empty of squirrels, of squirrel corpses, of Hannibal. He can’t tell if he’s disappointed. He considers what he might do if Hannibal was, in fact, outside. If Hannibal was outside, knife in hand. If Hannibal was outside, deftly flaying a living creature. If he caught Hannibal in the middle of mutilating something, would he wave?

He recalls rust-red grime under Abigail’s nails--blood or dirt, he never found out; the way she looked preternaturally calm upon returning from hours in the woods. The way her jaw would clench, microscopically, every time she returned home.

Would he wave? At three in the morning, drenched in cold sweat, hands shaking from nightmares, Will thinks he probably would. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! this is still alive!! it will be until it's done!! I'm just in a super time-consuming vocational theater tech program so during the university year I'm working from sunup to sundown with no time for writing, so unless I have a chapter buffer this thing just kind of sits and collects dust. i'm super psyched that people like this weird dark teen mess enough to want to know if it's still going, though! here's a chapter where will has a lot of emotions.

The Crawfords notice almost immediately that Will is not his usual self at breakfast. Returning to sleep was almost impossible; after finally clambering back through his window, the sweat of his nightmares practically frozen to his skin, he had tossed and turned restlessly, finally giving up and reading one of Jack’s favored crime novels by the slowly burgeoning dawn light. He must have fallen asleep at some point, because the blare of his alarm roused him from the kind of bone-deep sleep that only seems to happen when one only has an hour or two left to rest.

He had stumbled down the stairs, his eyes bleary and hair unkempt, and Bella looked concerned, the corners of her mouth tightening slightly as she passed him a cup of hot coffee. Now he sits, staring intently into his lap as he tries to force down breakfast. His head feels like it’s full of dense, sad fog.

When Jack sits next to him, he knows that they’ve noticed. He should have known: Jack and Bella are therapeutic care parents, trained to take in high-risk, mentally ill, or behavioral-disordered kids. Will’s mid-profile trauma case is something they are more than prepared for 

He cuts Jack off before he can say anything: “I’m fine, Jack. I had nightmares last night, but I’m okay now.”

 Jack makes a small noise; Will thinks it’s amusement, but not the malicious kind. He has always found it funny when Will can read his intentions before he even acts. He slides the newspaper over to Will--a peace offering--and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not right now,” he says, shaking his head. He takes a sip of coffee, but doesn’t open the paper. (He would rather save it for after dinner; the promise of Jack’s fatherly presence and the amicable quiet of their routine makes him feel more grounded.) Finally, he looks up at Jack, trying to smile. “Thanks, though.”

“If you’re not feeling up to having Hannibal over tomorrow, just let us know,” Bella says, catching the bowl of cereal that Buster tried to throw from his high chair the second she looked away. “It’s no trouble to reschedule dinner.”

“I think I’m all right,” Will shrugs. It’s true, too: the comfortable domesticity of breakfast has already made him feel worlds better. The fog is still there, but less so; he feels less like a trauma patient and more like someone recovering from a bad cold, now. “It’s nice to have something to look forward to.”

This dinner was supposed to be a peace offering to the Crawfords, but he realizes he is, actually, looking forward to it. It’s a pleasant surprise.

 --

“You look tired,” Alana says to him as she stops by his locker that morning. Will blushes, shakes his head, claims that he had a lot of homework. She gives him a long look. He can’t meet her eyes. “Don’t work yourself too hard,” she says. Her eyes linger on him in concern as she walks away.

“You look like hell,” Margot says, mid-sentence, her clothes acrid with the smell of stale cigarettes. Her breath fogs out thick as smoke in the chill behind the bike racks. Will shrugs. “I mean, more hellish than usual,” she amends. “As Mason would tell me, ‘Those eye bags are not Versace.’” She pauses, considering this. “He’s such a pig.”

“I’m sure you don’t wish to talk about it,” says Hannibal at lunch, “but do not try to tell me that you’re fine.” He slides a styrofoam cup full of weak tea across the table, the best that can be done in the school’s cafeteria. Will looks up at him, the first eye contact he has made all day, and laughs softly.

“I’d applaud you for your perception, but I’ve been told I look like shit all day,” he says ruefully. “Thanks, though.” 

“It’s no trouble,” Hannibal shrugs. As he unwraps his lunch, Will tries to pull himself out of the fog in his head.

“I’m not going to be great company today,” he finally blurts out. “You can sit with Bedelia; I wouldn’t be offended.”

“You’ve already spoken more to me than you did the first day I drove you home,” Hannibal smirks. “I consider that good company.”

Will finds himself chuckling. He picks at a greyish tater tot, pushing it around on his tray. The tea Hannibal brought him is little more than hot water, but he sips it anyways. “Your standards must not be too high, then.”

“You are my friend, Will, not some diversion. I don’t expect you to be a source of constant entertainment.”

“Excellent, first I’m too quiet, now I’m not entertaining. A great track record, so far.”

Hannibal grins at him. “You’re already regaining your conversational skills.”

“It’s hard to regain what wasn’t there to begin with,” Will retorts. He finds that the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards--probably twitching too much, but still inching into a shaky smile.

Hannibal looks as though he wants to say something. He stares steadily at Will, taking in the twitch of his mouth, the shakiness of his hands, before carefully forging forward. “I am not going to pry, Will. After this, I won’t ask you any further questions. But--and I won’t take ‘I’m just tired,’ as an answer--are you all right?”

Will’s smile freezes, becomes forced. His hands still tremor. “I’m fine. Or, I will be.”

Hannibal appraises him, then nods. “Good. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“I have nightmares, sometimes. Brings up old memories.” The truth bubbles forth before he can stop it; normally, lockdown is a more natural state to him. He looks down at his tray again, his shoulders tense. The confession feels like it came out of nowhere. “Sometimes they mess me up for a while. It’s stupid. I can handle it.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid to me,” Hannibal says. His tone is light; he does not try to meet Will’s eyes. It’s worlds better than the over-the-top concern Will is used to. Satisfied, Hannibal changes the subject. “Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Will nods. “Jack and Bella are excited.”

Hannibal’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “And are you?”

“To prove to them I’m not a social outcast? Sure.” Will chuckles. Hannibal lets out a soft laugh.

By the time Hannibal drives him home, he feels almost normal.

\--

On Friday, after school, Will does not watch Hannibal pull into the carport next door. Hannibal parks his car neatly in front of the Crawfords’s house, and Will feels an intense buzz behind his ribcage, the thrill of taking a friend into his home. He’s not sure if it’s a pleasant thrill. 

Winston rushes forwards as they enter the house, hugging Will around the legs as Hannibal watches in amusement. Will scoops him up, intending to bring him to Bella to spare Hannibal the experience of a toddler’s sticky fingers reaching insistently for him.

“Who’s this, then?” Hannibal asks, smiling. Will is slightly taken aback; he didn’t expect Hannibal to like children. Winston babbles excitedly from Will’s arms, a mixture of his name and a rapid-fire account of his day, his hobbies, and anything else that comes to mind.

“This is Winston. He’s my foster brother,” Will says. “He’s four.”

Before they can continue, Bella rushes into the hall, smiling apologetically at the boys before relieving Will of the squirming toddler. “Sorry about that, Will. He just gets so excited when you come home,” she shakes her head, laughing. “Hello Hannibal,” she adds quickly. “Why don’t you two head upstairs before dinner? It’ll keep the kids at bay.”

Will can see Hannibal start to say it’s no trouble, but he jerks his head towards the stairs. He doesn’t want Hannibal to see the way Bella still hesitates before letting Will hold the kids, the way she and Jack intently watch him as he plays with them.

Hannibal follows him up the stairs. Will’s room is spare and simple in the way that children whose possessions have to fit in one bag tend to be; his bed in one corner, his desk in the other, a small rug on the floor, no knickknacks in sight. The curtains are drawn over his window, hiding the roof from view. He’s not sure if he wants Hannibal to see the entirety of his sanctuary just yet.

“Well,” he shrugs. “This is it.” His room feels much smaller with Hannibal in it, the walls more bare. He sits on the edge of his bed, leaving the sole chair in the room for Hannibal.

Hannibal looks around appraisingly, smiling slightly. He nods in approval. “It suits you.”

Will snorts. “Is my personality really that lacking?”

“It’s guarded, much like you,” Hannibal replies. 

“Am I really so mysterious?” Will asks. 

Hannibal looks at him. “To many people, I’m sure you are.”

“But not to you.”

“No, not to me.”

Will considers this, letting it sink in. The silence in the room is delicate; with anyone other than Hannibal Lecter, it would have crossed the border into awkwardness.

“We are very similar, you and I,” Hannibal muses. He turns, looking Will in the eye almost lazily, as if Will isn’t the type to avoid eye contact. Will doesn’t flinch away. Finally, he breaks it, turning briefly to consider the roughly tied fishing lures scattered across Will’s desk. “At least, I feel we are.” 

“I’ve got some ambitious standards to live up to, then,” Will says. It was intended to be a joke, but comes out like a promise. He doesn’t smile. Neither does Hannibal.

Hannibal meets his eyes again. He reaches out, his hand brushing Will’s; he traces Will’s hand from wrist to fingertip, the edge of a nail barely catching along Will’s skin like the promise of a knife. Goosebumps trail across Will’s arm, but he does not shiver. “If that’s the path you choose,” Hannibal replies.

“I haven’t chosen already?” he asks. It’s a half-rhetorical question; he already knows the answer, but wants to hear Hannibal say it. Despite Hannibal’s feelings of similarity, Will thinks, around each other they are still closed books. As they talk, Will realizes, they’ve been steadily leaning inwards, closing the distance between them. It’s more out of privacy than intimacy, as if someone could be listening in. He can feel Hannibal’s presence, closer than he usually gets to anyone. Hannibal’s hand is on his arm, his skin prickling with nervous adrenaline.

“No,” Hannibal answers, his voice low and intense, as if it’s a secret. “Not yet.” The emphasis is on the _yet_ , and they both know it.

Before Will can open his mouth to respond, Jack calls them for dinner. The room has gone dim and grey as dusk fell; neither of them had noticed. They pull apart, eyes not meeting as they head down the stairs.

\--

Hannibal charms the Crawfords, as Will knew he would. The polite boy from next door who always offered to shovel their driveway during snow, the honor student, the good influence--there was no safer choice for a friend to help make Will look well-adjusted. When Hannibal leaves, Will can already feel how much more at ease his foster parents are around him.

Despite that, Will's stomach twists with wary half-guilt, like a child who got away with stealing from the cookie jar, the reward richer than the crime. He can't shake the fact that, on more than one level, dinner with Hannibal felt like deceit.

His arm still prickles with the memory of Hannibal's fingertips as he goes to sleep. 

He promised nothing, Will thinks. He made no covenant. But, despite that, he feels less than his own; a sliver of himself is now, somehow, in the possession of Hannibal Lecter. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a wild chapter appears!! i wrote this in like 2 days somehow, so congrats y'all get a very speedy update bc this boy has no life up in here  
> also can you tell i like the slow burn or what lmao  
> rec'd listening for this chapter and/or entire fic: literally anything by fever ray ("if i had a heart" is a good start), "hunter's kiss" by rasputina  
> (also: wow!! so much ridiculously amazing feedback!!! you're all amazing!! i am very very bad at responding to comments on this bc i'm a wreck but let me tell you all i am deeply touched & full of love) (i display that love by tormenting these poor teenagers i'm sorry)

Rides home with Hannibal have become a daily event rather than a rare privilege. At first, Will assumed it to be a fluke; perhaps Hannibal felt some sort of obligation after being invited to dinner. But every day, the car would pull up next to him. Eventually, Hannibal would stop by his locker, asking, “You’re coming, aren’t you?” as if it was nothing new at all.

In the car, they talk. Usually, it’s about nothing; the prospects of the cross-country team this season, the state of Hannibal’s car, the state of Will’s studies. Sometimes it isn’t.

“I don’t live with my parents either, you know,” Hannibal says one day. He says it lightly, flippantly, as if it’s nothing. A piece of trivia, perhaps. A fun fact.

Will knows it isn’t nothing. He doesn’t ask what happened. He looks over at Hannibal, at the way his hands hold the steering wheel so lightly, the way his whole body is relaxed. He has never met anyone so deliberate. He waits.

“I live with my aunt,” Hannibal adds. “She is agreeable enough. I’m lucky.” The implication rests in the air: Hannibal would never go so far to presume Will’s relationship with the Crawfords. He would consider such presumption to be rude.

“We both are,” says Will. It feels good to affirm the Crawfords in that way; it feels almost better to affirm Hannibal.

Hannibal nods, downshifts, glances at Will. Will senses approval. “I thought as much,” he says.

“You weren’t always lucky,” says Will. It’s not a question.

“Neither were you,” Hannibal replies. It’s not quite an answer, but it’s enough.

\--

When Will closes his locker at school that day, Freddie Lounds is on the other side of it. He looks at her levelly, his eyes resting on her arched brows, feigning eye contact. She grins, catching his trick quickly and meeting his gaze. Will looks away.

She leans in, getting into his space. “So, you _are_ a weird one, aren’t you.” The accusation is unprompted, quite nearly uncalled for. If it weren’t for his less than conventional first impression, Will would think Freddie was just trying to bait him. Regardless, the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

“So I’ve been told,” Will deadpans. There is color rising to his cheeks.

“Hannibal sure seems to like you regardless,” she presses. She chews idly on the cap of her pen, her eyes narrowed; a motion Will is sure she’s used to distract boys in the past. “I can’t imagine why.”

“He sure seems to dislike you,” he retorts. She stops chewing the pen, briefly frozen by the quick comeback. Her recovery is swift; Will barely has time to turn away before she’s walking in step with him, a wicked grin on her face.

“Margot _did_ say you were quick. Can’t say I believed her, but I’m not so proud that I won’t admit when I’ve been proved wrong.” Freddie tosses her voluminous hair, scanning Will up and down as if seeing him for the first time. “Hannibal is a snob and a prick, and you’re a serious statistical outlier for the sort of people he makes time for.” It would quite nearly be a non-sequitur if Freddie’s self-satisfied grin didn’t clearly state that she had been leading up to this statement for quite some time.

“I don’t know how you’d know what kind of people Hannibal makes time for,” Will snaps. “You’re certainly not one of them.”

Freddie grins like a shark that’s tasted blood. “Will _Graham_ ,” she scolds. “Here I thought you were Hannibal’s lapdog, but looks like kitty’s got _claws_.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors, Freddie.” Hannibal Lecter appears between them, his voice cold and level. Will starts slightly, not having noticed him approach; sparring with Freddie had absorbed him so thoroughly that he forgot to remain observant. “That’s a bad habit for a writer.”

“Doesn’t change my meaning, Hannibal,” Freddie says sunnily. Will notices that she doesn’t attempt the pen trick around him.

“Regardless, Will isn’t my lapdog,” Hannibal says, his voice dripping with distaste. “He’s my friend.”

Freddie smirks icily. “I find it difficult to believe you have _friends_ , Hannibal. Your pedestal is just too high. I didn’t think anyone was _worthy_ of being your equal.”

“You’re mistaking yourself for the general populace, Freddie,” Hannibal retorts coolly.

“Ooh, that one stung,” Freddie pouts, feigning hurt. She turns to Will, a flounce in her step. “I can’t waste my time with this anymore; I have to go to class. Tell Margot hi for me, won’t you?”

As she saunters off, Will watches Hannibal. His gaze is on her, seemingly aloof. Will feels off balance, the lack of sleep coupled with the adrenaline of a verbal sparring match making his head spin. Freddie is good at what she does, he realizes. She managed to keep him on his toes, kept him so off guard that he lost awareness of his surroundings, then tried to put him in a bad light with Hannibal by connecting herself to his friends. He’s tempted to ask Hannibal just _why_ Freddie is so out for blood when Hannibal cuts into his thoughts.

“You are friends with Margot Verger, correct?”

Will nods cautiously. Freddie’s bait had worked; perhaps Hannibal wasn’t infallible.

“Perhaps encourage her to develop better taste.” His voice is cold.

Will tenses, but doesn’t react. “I don’t choose my friends’ friends,” he replies. “Telling Margot what to do is an exercise in futility, anyways.”

Hannibal smirks. “I know her brother. I can imagine they’re very similar.”

Will scoffs. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

“That would be quite the insult,” Hannibal muses. “I wouldn’t wish being compared to Mason Verger on any sort of polite company.”

Will grins despite himself. “I’m sure she’d agree with that sentiment.”

“Still,” says Hannibal. His tone stays light, but his eyes are hard. “The Vergers are more trouble than meets the eye. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do, but there is a reason people keep them at arm’s length.”

For a second, Will feels that Hannibal may have been disappointed in him. He expects Hannibal to walk away, to punish him somehow. He’s braced for the humiliation of unfulfilled expectations.

“Join me for lunch today, will you?” Hannibal asks instead.

“Of course,” Will answers.

\--

Days pass, getting shorter as the seasons change. Morning frosts are starting to last all day. Will finds himself climbing out onto the roof less and less; he’s sleeping better, and the cold makes his bones ache. He rarely looks into Hannibal’s backyard anymore.

He and Hannibal see each other outside of school, now. Occasionally, they meet Bedelia and Alana at the local diner for coffee; these nights make Will feel like perhaps he’s being accepted, like he has worked his way into Hannibal’s clique.

But more often than not, Will has become a regular at Hannibal’s house--a privilege that even Hannibal’s other closest acquaintances are not afforded. His aunt is pleasant but reserved; she is young to be raising a teenager, and often needs to work late, so she rarely interrupts them. It helps that they are quiet, studious boys; more often than not, they spend their time solely on homework, speaking only rarely between assignments. If asked, Will would be hard-pressed to remember what they talk about: the content of their conversation has never been the focal point. With Hannibal, he’s realized, what matters is not what is on the surface. Idle chatter often has an undercurrent of something deeper--what that something is, however, he is still trying to work out.

Hannibal’s room, he’s noticed, is almost as spare as his own.

\--

“I never see you anymore,” says Margot. She’s started smoking Mason’s cigarettes lately; Will isn’t sure whose victory it is. She exhales a plume of smoke and it feels like an accusation.

Will watches her. He traces designs with one finger into the frost on the bike racks. “I’ve had a lot going on,” he finally says.

She rolls her eyes. “A lot of Hannibal,” she says. “And here I thought you weren’t so suggestible.”

“Freddie’s convinced you I’m his lapdog, hasn’t she.” Will is tense, his hands red with the cold.

Margot shrugs. “I don’t always listen to Freddie,” she says. “I like to make my own opinions.”

Will can feel the jab in her voice. “I thought you knew me well enough to know that I prefer to do the same,” he counters.

“Hannibal doesn’t _have_ equals, Will,” Margot counters. “You’re not an exception.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you on his command,” Will spits. “Don’t be oversensitive.”

Margot scoffs. “I’m not the oversensitive one, Will Graham.”

They sit in antagonistic silence. Margot takes another drag, inhaling too deep, holding the smoke for too long. Will can hear the suppressed cough in her exhalation.

“You shouldn’t smoke those,” he says quietly. It’s some kind of apology.

She sighs, as if her anger is being breathed out like so much more smoke. “I know.” She considers the cigarette, then clips it against the bike rack, tucking it half-smoked back into her pack. It’s a step forward.

Will knows better than to say anything. He waits.

“Things are getting bad at home,” Margot says.

“I’m sorry,” Will answers. The words feel hollow, too easily said, but he means them.

“Don’t be,” says Margot. “You’re probably the only one who understands.”

“I can skip math and get lunch with you,” Will offers. “If you want.”

“I’m meeting Freddie,” Margot says, but there’s no venom. Resignation, perhaps; maybe even wistfulness.

Will chances a smile. “You’ve got it bad, Margot.”

She smirks. “At least I admit it.”

\--

Evening is falling, in autumn’s early-afternoon way. The light is quickly fading in Hannibal’s room, but neither he nor Will has gotten up to turn on a lamp just yet.

Will is restless. It’s hunting season; his hands are jittery with the memory. Hannibal has been magnanimously ignoring his fidgeting. He finds himself staring out Hannibal’s window rather than doing his homework, already bracing himself for nightmares to come.

Hannibal closes his notebook, pushes back his desk chair. The noise jolts Will out of his reverie.

“Something is bothering you,” Hannibal says. It’s not a question; with Hannibal, it never is.

Will shakes his head. “Just the time of year. Fall gets me restless.”

Hannibal nods. “It’s a season of change.”

“How poetic,” Will half-laughs. “Have you been reading sonnets lately?”

“Whitman,” Hannibal answers. He holds up a book from the small stack on his desk. “I’d pretend to have been culturing myself, but it was required reading.”

Will laughs softly. His own reading for the day has gone nearly untouched, but Hannibal doesn’t chide him.

“Somehow I doubt it’s just the change of season that is bothering you, Will,” Hannibal says.

He shrugs. Memories flit by, tempting him down a rabbit hole. He doesn’t chase them. “It’s a weird time for me.”

“Places change, but seasons stay the same.” Hannibal nods, his gaze lingering out the window as well. “Perhaps we need a change of scenery.”

“I don’t think I’m up for the diner,” Will says. It’s the only other place they go; movies are expensive and overstimulating for Will, the library is hardly a social hub, and Hannibal has no interest in high school parties.

Hannibal leans back in his chair. “There are some trails in the woods you might enjoy,” he suggests. “I haven’t been there in quite some time.”

Will pictures tangled woods, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the smell of loam and bark, the weight of a gun in his hands. His heartbeat quickens involuntarily, a rush of adrenaline surging. He wants to say no.

“That sounds good,” he says instead.

The sun is low in the sky as they set off.

\--

It should be too late to explore the woods without a lamp; the light is grey and dim, and swiftly getting dimmer even as a bright moon rises. But Hannibal and Will walk in near-silence, picking their way through deer paths and across barely-maintained trails. Will can smell the spice of bark, the dark undercurrent rot in the layers of dead and dying leaves that coat the ground. Occasionally a twig will break far away, but he has learned not to startle at the sounds of animals.

“It’s strange,” Will says, “how woods all look the same.”

Hannibal watches him. They slow, taking in the trees towering around them. Will’s eyes strain, trying to adjust to the growing dark.

“I used to go hunting with my last foster father,” he says. “He taught me to shoot.”

“What did you hunt?” Hannibal asks. There’s a carefulness to his tone, as if he doesn’t want to scare Will away.

“Deer, mostly.” The woods change as they walk; the underbrush is thinner here, the trees more spaced out. Will reaches out, running his hand along the wide trunk of a nearby tree. The bark is rough against his palm. “This is an old part of the forest. Maybe a century old.”

Hannibal nods. “Did he teach you about that?”

“He taught me a lot of things.” Will feels very far away. “Me and Abigail both. She was my sister.” He pauses, correcting himself. “Foster sister.”

He watches Hannibal falter. It’s a new experience. Finally, he gathers himself. “Do you keep in touch?”

“No,” says Will.

Hannibal nods. Will knows he won’t press; perhaps that’s why he continues. “Garrett Jacob Hobbs adopted her a year before I arrived. I was supposed to be there long-term.” Night is quickly falling, moonlight barely outlining their shapes in the dark. “I lasted almost a year. At first things seemed good; Garrett took me hunting, taught me about deer and trees and how to shoot. Abigail would come along too. We were close.”

Hannibal gets closer to him in the dark. A hand clasps his shoulder; Will realizes that he is shaking. He can feel warmth radiating from Hannibal, cutting through the chill of fall. “A month or so in I realized something wasn’t right. Abigail was on guard more often than not. Sometimes she would just disappear for a while.” He inhales, exhales. His breath rattles. “She would spend hours in the woods. Garrett would get on edge whenever she did it. Sometimes he would get on edge even if she didn’t. We both knew to avoid him when he got like that.”

Words fail him. He focuses on breathing. Hannibal watches him.

“He hurt you,” Hannibal says. “Didn’t he.”

“He hurt Abigail.” The words fall out of Will’s mouth. “Had been for a long time.”

Hannibal waits. Will is relieved that he isn’t asking questions.

“Sometimes I would get home and hear him yelling. Or Abigail would have been crying.” His breath shakes, tears welling heavy in his chest instead of his eyes. “I never actually saw her cry; you could just tell she had been. She was so hard. I never met anyone as hardened as her. Nobody got in.”

“You came close.”

“Closer than anyone else.” He sighs. “I never knew what she was thinking. I don’t know what she did in the woods.”

They stand there for a while, letting the sounds of the forest at night wash over them. Twigs crack occasionally, wind rustles branches. Hannibal’s hand is warm. Will covers it with his own. Their fingers twine together; they don’t look at each other.

“Things started getting bad. Garrett would get irrational; I’d be five minutes later than usual getting home from school and he would interrogate me--where I’d been, what I was doing. If I did something wrong, sometimes he would grab me hard enough to bruise. Abigail got it worse. Sometimes he would just send me out. I would just walk, not sure when I would be allowed back. At first I would try to stay, for Abigail, but she would tell me to go. I think he wouldn’t be as hard on her if I cooperated. He started to take us out into the woods, after a while, hunting at weird hours. He would be so focused.” Will shakes his head. “I’d hear him threatening her at night, sometimes. If he caught her trying to leave.”

They hear rustling nearby, the occasional crack of a branch. A raccoon, perhaps, or a small deer. The sounds get louder, then fade.

“Once, she was gone for almost three days, out in the woods. She always seemed so calm when she got back. It was almost winter. She’d never been gone that long before,” Will says. His words are coming out jumbled, his thoughts and memories racing. “She had taken to wearing scarves all the time, by then. I asked her if she was ok; I always asked, every time, but usually she just brushed me off. This time, she unwound her scarf and there were bruises--” he gestures, one-handed, “--all around her throat.”

Hannibal’s hand squeezes his.

“It wasn’t the first time he’d hurt her,” Will’s voice is hoarse. “But it was the first time he’d almost killed her.” His eyes sting. “We got out pretty soon after that.” He doesn’t elaborate. Will knows Hannibal can tell that there’s much more to the story, but Hannibal doesn’t press him. His tongue feels traitorous; he made leaving sound so easy.

They stand there for a while, their breath fogging in the chill air. Finally, Hannibal speaks. “I’m very sorry you had to go through that, Will.”

Will nods. He feels drained of words.

“So am I.”

They pick their way through the woods carefully, walking home slowly in the dark.

\--

That night, Will dreams of tall trees, of blood and gunsmoke. He awakens gasping for air as if he’d just been running, or perhaps drowning. He clambers out onto the roof, his movements clumsy with panic but silent with practice, the cold air slowly grounding him. He puts his head in his hands, trying to calm himself, trying to breathe, sweat dripping from his tangled hair. His head feels tight and tense.

A minute passes, then five, then ten. He looks up slowly, letting his eyes adjust in the moonlight. A brief movement catches his eye, and he freezes.

Next door, Hannibal Lecter is walking back inside. His hands are sticky black in the dark; it takes until the blade of the knife he holds flashes redly in the moonlight for Will to realize that they are coated in blood.

Adrenaline rushes through him; he feels very cold, his heart pounding hard and fast, breath coming quick and shallow. He doesn’t dare move.

It takes him nearly five minutes to realize that Hannibal hadn’t seen him.

\--

Trying to fall asleep again is an exercise in futility. Will’s hands are clammy from nightmares and adrenaline; each time he closes his eyes, he jolts awake, sure that the hand Hannibal held in the woods is wet and coated with blood.

The warmth of it, he thinks, would almost be a comfort.


End file.
